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This article was originally written in English. Text in other languages is provided via machine translation.

Recently, at Adobe’s developer conference Adobe MAX 2011 in Los Angeles, representatives of Adobe Globalization group had the opportunity to present – for the first time publicly – how we are envisioning the deployment of localized resources (texts, user interface strings) to mobile applications in the field.

In their presentation “Dynamic Language Delivery for mobile applications” (here as an Adobe MAX video), Daniel Nay, engineering manager, and Dirk Meyer, product manager, demonstrated how language updates or entirely new languages, can be delivered to applications on mobile devices in a matter of seconds. (In the presentation video, you can find demo sequences at 7:00 and 35:50 on the timeline.)

Localization Of Mobile Applications

Like in all other areas of software creation, the development of mobile applications, too, is increasingly applying “agile development” principles: Short “sprints” are helping to implement specific features in a targeted fashion and to deliver them into the hands of users and customers faster, compared to desktop software products. At the same time, and as a consequence of the new development paradigm, the time between the frequent “pushes” of new product versions become shorter and is often measured only in weeks. As a consequence, an end-user is receiving updated product versions more frequently. Fortunately, their installation only takes a minute or less, and (most important for some!) they can be skipped, if they don’t seem attractive or if there is no time for the update.

In the world of short development cycles and frequent updates, the differences between versions of a mobile application often consist only of a single feature, or some fixes for software bugs. Accordingly, from a localization perspective, the delta between the localized strings from one version to the next, is often only a small one. There might even be cases, where it is merely a fix for a localized string that constitutes an update. In situations like that, it may look a bit out of proportion to initiate a complete localization cycle for such a small change. Because no matter whether changes are big or small, translators, build engineers and testers, all have to follow a complex workflow with many mutual dependencies before the product finally can reach the app(lication) “stores” or the “markets”. Starting such a powerful machinery, designed to flawlessly localize the most complex desktop applications, for only small changes, and doing so even more frequently than in the “non-agile” past? Again, a bit out of proportion, it seems …

Here now, DLD provides a new way to deploy language resources, like user interface strings or other texts used in an application. And it does so without hindering the fast and agile engineering workflows and without slowing down the subsequent application delivery. Instead, DLD workflows are designed to match agile development cycles, including rapid and frequent deliveries to end-users. DLD enables the testing of improvements and modifications instantly, and allows for approved deliveries to be performed in real-time, be it in staging or production environments.

Principles Of DLD

DLD technology effectively decouples the delivery of the the mobile core application (plus one or more core languages) from the deployment of subsequent language deliveries (like UI string fixes or new languages). It does so by using two completely independent avenues to get those resources to a customer. Here is how …

DLD enablement & deployment

First of all, a DLD-enabled core application takes the usual route and reaches the customer as a fully tested and functional product through being downloaded from a website, “store”, or “market”. DLD-enabled means that an application should integrate a DLD library to perform DLD-related tasks (this integration is very lean and can often be achieved with a single line of code). The other requirement for an application to be prepared for DLD is that it should be architected in a “world-ready” fashion: Strings should be replaceable, variable interface string lengths should be possible through dynamic UI layout capabilities, and more. The good news here: It is already an accepted best practice to write any software – no matter whether it supports DLD or not – in a “world-ready” way so that it supports internationalization features and easy localizability.

If, at a later point in time, new or updated text strings or a new language altogether need to be delivered, a second deployment path through the “localization cloud” will be used, completely independent from the application deployment avenue. The localization deliveries will be held available on servers, queried by the application from time to time for language updates. The frequency of these queries can be set with the help of preferences in the application and, of course, a user should always be able to opt-out of this functionality completely.

Customizing multilingual applications in user-friendly ways

In addition to non-intrusive, instant language updates and the option to add new languages when an application is already in the hands of users, there are more ways how we can see DLD supporting new features of multilingual mobile software.
For example, if an application does not come in the language preferred by the user, DLD functionality can be used to check whether this language might be available from the “localization cloud”. More intelligent applications might actually notice that among its current languages there is none matching the (user-preferred) system language … and trigger an alert to download a “language pack” in the system language, if it is available. Thus, DLD can be used to improve a multilingual user experience, where languages and language updates are available at any time: For those, the need to locate, download or install a complete application bundle does not exist anymore.

Finally, it is important to note (the presentation video shows this), that the language updates are available in the running application right away, without having to restart or perform another type of user action: new resources are loaded in the background and appear seamlessly, once they have been downloaded and integrated.

DLD’s Benefits

In summary, DLD comes with a number of benefits for consumers of mobile applications:

“Instant, real-time” delivery and integration of localization updates and fixes for mobile applications in the field.

Language updates can be configured per user preferences, ranging from completely “transparent” to “fully informed”.

Additional languages desired by a user after an application install, can be added on demand, without having to download and install another complete application package.

Missing languages complementing a local device environment, for example, after switching the system language, can be discovered and installed if the user so desires.

Moreover, software development teams are also among those that save time and effort through DLD technology:

DLD library integration is “minimally invasive” (often, only a single line of code is required).

Leveraging the localization cloud, “world-ready” applications will be able to receive language updates whenever they become available during the development process.

DLD separates application development from localization workflows. By doing so, it removes many process and scheduling dependencies between the two.

Development work can continue until late in the cycle and for as long as the application maintains a state ready to receive strings of multiple languages with different properties.

Development work can continue until overarching milestones are requiring it to get ready for the push live. A user interface does not have to be “frozen” with the arrival of localization resources.

Testing work becomes more efficient and will not be accompanied anymore by repetitive tasks of building and installing the application, before testing it for every language or localization fix. Instead, as long as language fixes are involved, they can be delivered to the application instantly and the testers can verify their integration into the application without delay.

In Short …

DLD is the first workflow allowing for immediate, dynamic, and on-demand localization of an application during post-development states. This is possible through making localized resources available as updates, without the need to re-deploy combined application-language packages as a whole.

Among the advantages of the DLD approach, an almost instant “time-to-market/user” and a much simplified development/localization interplay, are probably the two most valuable ones. From many angles and perspectives, DLD is a fast and resource-saving way to perform localization deployment for mobile applications running on a variety of devices.

Expect to see it in your favorite Adobe mobile application at some point in the (near?) future.